THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"88 Minutes"
Jack Gramm Has 88 Minutes To Live. You Have 108 Minutes to Walk Out Of The Theater. You Do The Math.
By Omar P.L. Moore/April 18, 2008
Leelee Sobieski as Lauren Douglas, and Al Pacino as Jack Gramm in "88 Minutes", which opened today across North America. The film was directed by Jon Avnet, who directed Mr. Pacino in the forthcoming film "Righteous Kill", which also stars Robert De Niro. (Photo: Sony Pictures/Millenium Films)
In baseball double-headers -- two games against the same opponent in a city or town in one day -- it is usually expected that the two competing baseball teams will each win one of the games. But this first of a double-dip everybody loses on multiple counts with "88 Minutes", the thriller from Jon Avnet, the director who must hope that his forthcoming September film "Righteous Kill", the second part of the Al Pacino-Jon Avnet double bill, will not be a complete and utter disaster with audiences, for this mid-April foolish film surely will be.
The film "88 Minutes", which opened across the U.S. and Canada today, is set in Seattle and shot in Vancouver, is akin to a "Law and Order" television episode gone horribly awry. Early on there is a brutal murder of a twin sister and it is a cheap, tawdry and voyeuristic moment designed for the quasi-snuff film crowd, the same kind who probably adored Joel Schumacher's "8MM" -- another "eight"-titled film that proves that anything eight is definitely more than enough.
Al Pacino, who is far too good an acting legend to be mired in this weak, lazy screenplay by Gary Scott Thompson, is Jack Gramm, a weathered, jaded, womanizing forensic investigator for the FBI whom almost ten years ago testified as an expert witness in Jon Forrester's trial for rape and murder, which resulted in a conviction and death row for Mr. Forrester (played with mischief and glee-eyed relish by Neal McDonough, the uber-villain on celluloid -- he's actually the best reason to keep an eyeball at all on this pitiful exercise.) Now some mysterious male voice warns Gramm that he has 88 minutes to live. In addition, Gramm becomes a prime suspect in the serial murders of women, one of whom is found dead after being in Gramm's company.
Jack Gramm Has 88 Minutes To Live. You Have 108 Minutes to Walk Out Of The Theater. You Do The Math.
By Omar P.L. Moore/April 18, 2008
Leelee Sobieski as Lauren Douglas, and Al Pacino as Jack Gramm in "88 Minutes", which opened today across North America. The film was directed by Jon Avnet, who directed Mr. Pacino in the forthcoming film "Righteous Kill", which also stars Robert De Niro. (Photo: Sony Pictures/Millenium Films)
In baseball double-headers -- two games against the same opponent in a city or town in one day -- it is usually expected that the two competing baseball teams will each win one of the games. But this first of a double-dip everybody loses on multiple counts with "88 Minutes", the thriller from Jon Avnet, the director who must hope that his forthcoming September film "Righteous Kill", the second part of the Al Pacino-Jon Avnet double bill, will not be a complete and utter disaster with audiences, for this mid-April foolish film surely will be.
The film "88 Minutes", which opened across the U.S. and Canada today, is set in Seattle and shot in Vancouver, is akin to a "Law and Order" television episode gone horribly awry. Early on there is a brutal murder of a twin sister and it is a cheap, tawdry and voyeuristic moment designed for the quasi-snuff film crowd, the same kind who probably adored Joel Schumacher's "8MM" -- another "eight"-titled film that proves that anything eight is definitely more than enough.
Al Pacino, who is far too good an acting legend to be mired in this weak, lazy screenplay by Gary Scott Thompson, is Jack Gramm, a weathered, jaded, womanizing forensic investigator for the FBI whom almost ten years ago testified as an expert witness in Jon Forrester's trial for rape and murder, which resulted in a conviction and death row for Mr. Forrester (played with mischief and glee-eyed relish by Neal McDonough, the uber-villain on celluloid -- he's actually the best reason to keep an eyeball at all on this pitiful exercise.) Now some mysterious male voice warns Gramm that he has 88 minutes to live. In addition, Gramm becomes a prime suspect in the serial murders of women, one of whom is found dead after being in Gramm's company.
Ho-hum.
Does anybody care?
Well, we don't wish for the demise of Jack Gramm or of any women, but we do want the film to be over, for its own demise has come relatively early in the proceedings. If you go back to black-and-white films like "The Big Clock" (1948) with Ray Milland, "D.O.A." with Edmund O'Brien (1950) and Agatha Christie's and Rene Clair's film "And Then There Were None" (1945), you would find more tension, better dialogue and far better screenplays than the one Mr. Thompson pens here.
But comparing "88 Minutes" to such classic films is hardly a fair fight.
There are a litany of talented ladies who appear with Mr. Pacino -- Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman and Deborah Kara Unger -- but all are sadly reduced to ornaments or simply expendable pieces of a larger bizarro puzzle, a means to occupying screen time in order to get to the end of the film. Too bad, because their characters needed a better accounting for, one which ironically this film hardly deserves. All of them, even the great Amy Brenneman, Mr. Pacino's co-star in the classic "Heat", can do much better than they do here, and much of it isn't their own fault.
Benjamin McKenzie of television's "The O.C." has a small role as one of Gramm's students, with his own suspicions about who is behind the serial murders that are continuing despite Forrester's imprisonment. And the red herrings which fly around in this film are as unwelcome as a hole in the head. The film in essence becomes an obstacle to itself, with a sneering FBI detective played by William Forsythe, who in a semi-climactic scene with Mr. Pacino's Jack becomes completely schizophrenic in his actions -- it is sad but also laughable that this one-second I'm about to do this, the next instant I'm not -- was able to stay in the film. Maybe the editor fell asleep, because we are inclined to do the same.
In regards to "88 Minutes", as a police officer might often be heard saying: there's nothing to see here!
It's rare that on the same weekend a reviewer gets to write about both the best film of the year ("Body Of War") and the worst film of the year so far (in a tie with another Sony production "Vantage Point", released two months ago). Both of these films "Body" and "88", were released today, but "88 Minutes", which could ultimately make it two consecutive years for Sony with the worst film of all (last year for this reviewer it was "Premonition") -- is an amazing howler.
Amazing. Disastrously so. Mr. Avnet has definitely seen better days. Hopefully his "Righteous Kill" will this September.
The clock is ticking. Tick tock . . .
"88 Minutes" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for disturbing violent content, brief nudity and language. The film is actually one hour and 48 minutes in length, but does it really matter how long this train-wreck of a film is?
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2008. All Rights Reserved.
Well, we don't wish for the demise of Jack Gramm or of any women, but we do want the film to be over, for its own demise has come relatively early in the proceedings. If you go back to black-and-white films like "The Big Clock" (1948) with Ray Milland, "D.O.A." with Edmund O'Brien (1950) and Agatha Christie's and Rene Clair's film "And Then There Were None" (1945), you would find more tension, better dialogue and far better screenplays than the one Mr. Thompson pens here.
But comparing "88 Minutes" to such classic films is hardly a fair fight.
There are a litany of talented ladies who appear with Mr. Pacino -- Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman and Deborah Kara Unger -- but all are sadly reduced to ornaments or simply expendable pieces of a larger bizarro puzzle, a means to occupying screen time in order to get to the end of the film. Too bad, because their characters needed a better accounting for, one which ironically this film hardly deserves. All of them, even the great Amy Brenneman, Mr. Pacino's co-star in the classic "Heat", can do much better than they do here, and much of it isn't their own fault.
Benjamin McKenzie of television's "The O.C." has a small role as one of Gramm's students, with his own suspicions about who is behind the serial murders that are continuing despite Forrester's imprisonment. And the red herrings which fly around in this film are as unwelcome as a hole in the head. The film in essence becomes an obstacle to itself, with a sneering FBI detective played by William Forsythe, who in a semi-climactic scene with Mr. Pacino's Jack becomes completely schizophrenic in his actions -- it is sad but also laughable that this one-second I'm about to do this, the next instant I'm not -- was able to stay in the film. Maybe the editor fell asleep, because we are inclined to do the same.
In regards to "88 Minutes", as a police officer might often be heard saying: there's nothing to see here!
It's rare that on the same weekend a reviewer gets to write about both the best film of the year ("Body Of War") and the worst film of the year so far (in a tie with another Sony production "Vantage Point", released two months ago). Both of these films "Body" and "88", were released today, but "88 Minutes", which could ultimately make it two consecutive years for Sony with the worst film of all (last year for this reviewer it was "Premonition") -- is an amazing howler.
Amazing. Disastrously so. Mr. Avnet has definitely seen better days. Hopefully his "Righteous Kill" will this September.
The clock is ticking. Tick tock . . .
"88 Minutes" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for disturbing violent content, brief nudity and language. The film is actually one hour and 48 minutes in length, but does it really matter how long this train-wreck of a film is?
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2008. All Rights Reserved.